Rollback

It was. Mike Braeden. God, Don hadn’t seen him since high school. But there was no mistaking that broad, round face, with the close-together eyes and the one continuous eyebrow; even wrinkled and sagging, it was still obviously him.

Mike had been in Bill’s year, but Don had known him, too. One of only four boys on a block mostly populated by girls, Mike — Mikey, as he’d been known back then, or Mick, as he’d styled himself briefly during his early teens — had been a mainstay of street-hockey games, and had belonged to the same Scout troop that had met here.

"That’s Mike Braeden," Don said to Sarah, pointing. "An old friend."

She smiled indulgently. "Go over and say hello."

He scuttled sideways between two rows of pews. When he got to Mike, Don found he was doing what one does at funerals, sharing a little remembrance of the dearly departed with the next of kin. "Old Bill, he loved his maple syrup," Mike was saying, and Pam nodded vigorously, as if they’d reached agreement on a nanotech-test-ban treaty. "And none of that fake stuff for him, if you please," Mike continued. "It had to be the real thing, and—"

And he stopped, frozen, as motionless as Bill himself doubtless was in his silk-lined box. "My… God," Mike managed after a few moments. "My God. Sorry, son, you took my breath away. You’re the spitting image of Bill." He narrowed his beady eyes and drew his one eyebrow, now thundercloud gray, into a knot. "Who… who are you?"

"Mikey," Don said, "it’s me. Don Halifax."

"No, it—" But then he stopped again. "My God, it— you do look like Do

"I’ve had a rollback," Don said.

"How could you—"

"Someone else paid for it."

"God," said Mike. "That’s amazing. You — you look fabulous."

"Thanks. And thanks for coming. It would have meant a lot to Bill to have you here."

Mike was still staring at him, and Don was feeling very uncomfortable about it.

"Little Do

"Mikey, please. I just wanted to say hi."

The other man nodded. "Sorry. It’s just that I’ve never met anyone who’s had a rollback."

"Until recently," said Don, "neither had I. But I don’t want to talk about that. You were saying something about Bill’s fondness for maple syrup…?"

Mike considered for a moment, clearly warring with himself over whether to ask more questions about what had happened to Don, or to accept the invitation to change the subject. He nodded once, his decision made. "Remember when the old Scout troop used to go up north of Highway Seven each winter and tap some trees?

Bill was in heaven!" Mike’s face showed that he realized he’d probably chosen not quite the right metaphor under the current circumstances, but that simply gave him an incentive to quickly push on, and soon the topic of Don’s rollback was left far behind.

Pam was listening intently, but Don found his eyes sca

And, as he looked around the room, his heart sank. None of these people, that was for sure. Not his wife, not his kids, not any of his childhood friends. They’d all be dead long, long before he would. Oh, his grandchildren might yet outlive him; but they weren’t here right now, nor, he saw, were their parents. Presumably Carl and Angela were off somewhere else in the church, perhaps busily straightening collars and smoothing dresses on youngsters who had rarely, if ever, had to wear such things before.

In a few minutes, he would present the eulogy, and he’d reach back into his brother’s past for anecdotes and revelatory incidents, things that would show what a great guy Bill had been. But at his own eventual funeral, there would be no one who could speak to his childhood or his first adulthood, no one to say anything about the initial eighty or ninety years of his life. Every single thing he’d done to date would be forgotten.

He excused himself from Pam and Mike, who had moved on from Bill’s love of maple syrup to extolling his general prudence. "Whenever we were playing street hockey and a car was coming, it was always Bill who first shouted, ‘Car!’" Mike said. "I’ll always remember him doing that. ‘Car! Car!’ Why, he…"

Don walked down the aisle, to the front of the church. The hardwood floor was dappled with color, thanks to the stained-glass windows. Sarah was now sitting in the second row, at the far right, looking weary and alone, her cane hanging from the rack that held the hymn books on the back of the pew in front of her.

Don came over and crouched next to her in the aisle. "How are you doing?" he asked.

Sarah smiled. "All right. Tired." She narrowed her eyes, concerned. "How about you?"

"Holding together," he said.

"It’s nice so many people came."

He sca

The minister — a short black man of about forty-five, with hair starting to both gray and recede — entered, and soon enough the service was under way. Don tried to relax as he waited to be called upon. Sarah, next to him, held his hand.

The minister had a surprisingly deep voice given his short stature, and he led the assembled group through a few prayers. Don bowed his head during these, but kept his eyes open and stared at the narrow strips of hardwood flooring between his pew and the one in front.

"…and so," the minister said, all too soon, "we’ll now hear a few words from Bill’s younger brother, Don."

Oh, Christ, thought Don. But the mistake had been a natural one, and, as he walked to the front of the church, climbing three stairs to get onto the raised platform, he decided not to correct it.

He gripped the sides of the pulpit and looked out at the people who had come to bid farewell to his brother: family, including Bill’s own son Alex and the grown children of Susan, Don and Bill’s sister who had died back in 2033; a few old friends; some of Bill’s coworkers from the United Way; and many people who were strangers to Don but doubtless meant something to Bill.

"My brother," he said, trotting out the first of the platitudes he’d jotted down on his datacom, which he’d now fished from his suit pocket, "was a good man. A good father, a good husband, and—"

And he stopped cold, not because of his current failings in the category he’d just enumerated, but because of who had just entered at the back of the room, and was now taking a seat in the last row of pews. It had been thirty years since he’d seen his ex-sister-in-law Doreen, but there she was, dressed in black, having come to quietly say good-bye to the man she’d divorced all those years ago. In death, it seemed, all was forgiven.

He looked down at his notes, found his place, and stumbled on. "Bill Halifax worked hard at his job, and even harder at being a father and a citizen. It’s not often—"

He faltered again, because he saw what the next words he’d written were, and realized he’d either have to skip them, or else force the minister’s error into the light.

Screw it, he thought. I never got to say this when Bill was alive. I’ll be damned if I don’t say it now. "It’s not often," he said, "that an older brother looks up to a younger brother, but I did, all the time."

There were murmurs, and he could see the perplexed faces. He found himself veering from his prepared comments.

"That’s right," he said, gripping the pulpit even harder, needing its support. "I’m Bill’s older brother. I was lucky enough to have a rollback." More murmurs, shared glances. "It was… it wasn’t something I sought out, or even something I wanted, but…"